Eagle Tales: Washington College of Law

Excerpts from the Eagle

By Amy Burroughs

1896: Washington attorneys Ellen Spencer Mussey and Emma Gillett
planted the seeds of the Washington College of Law when they agreed to teach
aspiring female attorneys—a progressive move at a time when most DC law schools
didn't admit women. The first Woman's Law Class convened February 1 in Mussey's
law office; three women attended. By fall, there were six students. Tuition was
$5 per month. When WCL incorporated in 1898, it became the first law school
founded and led by women.

1920: WCL's first permanent location was 1315 K Street, once the
home of prominent attorney and orator Robert Ingersoll. The move was welcome,
as the fledgling WCL had relocated frequently. Previous students had met in an
E Street mansion with faulty furnaces and a landlord who was fond of imbibing
and "auditing" classes. WCL then moved to an Eighth and F Street location where
students often stumbled in the poorly lit halls and stairways. It took another
three moves before WCL settled on K Street.

1963: Fourteen years after WCL's 1949 merger with AU, officials
broke ground for the John Sherman Myers Building on campus. "Without a doubt,
the idea of the law school on the uptown campus is one of the greatest ideas of
the university," Dean Myers exclaimed. A time capsule, to be opened in a
century or so, was buried in the new building's cornerstone, containing a DC
Women's Bar Association yearbook, a WCL catalog, copies of the Eagle, and other
treasures.

1996: After outgrowing the Myers Building, WCL doubled its space
by moving to 4801 Massachusetts Avenue. The Eagle reported: "After 11 years of
searching for the site, four lawsuits pending and recent attacks of vandalism,
the new Washington College of Law building was opened Tuesday night." The
building boasted a "classroom for the future," with technology that allowed
professors to access students' computer workstations to display their documents
on a screen.

2016: More than 200 people attended the June 2013 groundbreaking
of WCL's new Tenley Campus digs, sipping "Tenley Tea" and enjoying a
post-ceremony barbecue. In February 2016, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsburg was the guest of honor at the ribbon-cutting. WCL's 312,000 square
feet include classrooms, courtrooms, clinical space, a law library, a dining
hall and café, and a large courtyard. If WCL's founders could see how far that
first Woman's Law Class has come, they would rightly be proud.